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Library of The Theological Seminary 


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PRESENTED BY 
Harry R. DeYoung 





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THE KING’S CROSS 


MEDITATIONS ON THE 
SEVEN LAST WoRDS 


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THE KING’S CROSS 


MEDITATIONS ON’ THE 


SEVEN LAST WORDS 


ay OF Prins 
cet oN 


Om 
; had 
, MAY 30172 *) 






By Ancus Dun 


THE EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 


LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORE 
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
TORONTO, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 


1926 


CopyYRIGHT, 1926, BY 
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. 


Made in the United States 








CONTENTS 


Ree LCORUY ein sci OKA ie Oe AT 
Pe OCR LE LON cle iit ail 
And they crucified him, . . . and sitting 


down, they watched him there: and set up 
over his head his accusation writien, This 
is Jesus, the King of the Jews.—S. Mat- 
THEW XXVIii, 35, 30, 37. 


PEEL ESAS EVV OPED Si iy aie 16 


Then said Jesus, Father, forgive ow 
for they know not what they do.—S. LUKE 
XXill, 34. 


tee COND WORDT ig hie cl) 2s 


And one of the malefactors which were 
hanged railed on lim, saying, If thou be 
Christ, save thyself and us. But the other 
answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not 
thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same 
condemnation? And we indeed justly; for 
we receive the due reward of our deeds: 


[vii] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


but this man hath done nothing amiss. And 
he said unio Jesus, Lord, remember me 
when thou comest into thy Kingdom. And 
Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, 
Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.— 
S. LUKE xxili, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43. 


THE THIRD WORD {3 os a ga 


When Jesus therefore saw his mother, 
and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, 
he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold 
thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Be- 
hold thy mother! And from that hour that 
disciple took her unto his own home.—sS. 
JOHN xix, 26, 27. 


THE ‘FOURTH WORD. >.) 29522 
And when the sixth hour was come, there 
was darkness over the whole land until the 
ninth hour. And at the ninth hour; Jesus 
cried with a loud voice, saying, Elot, 
Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being in- 
terpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me?—S. MARK xv, 33, 34. 


[viii] 


CONTENTS 


Beet LED NVCIINL MO ame) a avicehin SE 

Afier this, Jesus knowing that all things 
were now accomplished, that the scripture 
might be fulfilled; saith, I thirst—S. JouHn 
xix, 28. 


ere tL LL WORD oT hati anata ye 

When Jesus therefore had received the 
vinegar, he said, It is finished.—S. JoHN 
Xix, 30. 


rs VELN Loi W ORDO oii el eao65 

And when Jesus had cried with a loud 
voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I 
commend my spirit: and having said thus 
he gave up the ghost—S. LUKE xxiii, 46. 


RONOLESION) 0) 00. ole hes 


[ix] 


These meditations on the Seven 
Words from the Cross were originally 
prepared as the addresses for the 
Three Hours’ Service on Good Friday. 
They are now printed substantially in 
the form in which they were delivered. 


[x] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


INTRODUCTORY 


E are a people more aware of 
what we have done than of 
what God has done for us. We are 
given to admiring our own works,— 
the works of our hands, that which our 
fingers have made. Among us the first 
question about a man tends to be, 
“What does he do?”’: and we often 
imply that at the Last Judgment the 
chief inquiry will be, “What has he 
produced?” Our religion consists 
largely in “making good.” Our sense 
of dependence is at low ebb. 
But there are times with us all when 
this cult of achievement leaves us un- 
satisfied. Those unmanageable mys- 


[1] 


THE KINGS ROSS 


teries, birth and love and death, break 
in upon us with the reminder that we 
are not masters here and that our own 
doings are but snatches of embroidery 
on the vast fabric of the “given.” Or 
we simply grow weary of our own do- 
ings. The business of making good 
and making love becomes effortful. — 
The fresh tide of our interest in the 
day’s work ebbs. We become conscious 
of how much there is to finish and how 
little we ever finish, We grow ill- 
natured. Our love of life slackens. 
All around us are unfinishedness and 
complexity and problems. 

At such times we desert the altars 
of achievement. We leave our work 
frankly unfinished and seek out those 
places where there is nothing to finish. 
We leave behind the things and rela- 
tionships and people that demand to be 
“made good” and seek for those things 


[2] 





INTRODUCTORY 


whose goodness is a free gift. The 
sea, clambering up the shore, does not 
ask to be finished. The deep shad- 
owed hills ask nothing of us but that 
we should lift up our eyes to them. 
The charging brook makes no demands 
upon us. We go from the unfinished 
work of our own hands to the finished 
handiwork of God and, behold, it is 
very good. 

We go from the world of demands 
and tasks, where it is hard to “make 
good” and hard to “make love” into 
the presence of that which it is hard 
not to love. We draw apart to the 
contemplation of those things which 
only ask of us that we love them and 
be thankful for them,—flowers and 
sunrise and stars. We separate our- 
selves for the time from the people we 
have to persuade to believe in us and 
in whom we have to persuade ourselves 


[3] 


THE RING Sy CROs 


to believe, our clients and customers 
and patients and students and supe- 
riors, and go apart with those familiar 
friends and kindred who by the myste- 
rious grace of God seem to believe in 
us already and in whom we, for our 
part, can not help believing. 

Under this treatment our good na- 
ture is somewhat restored. Something 
more like a right spirit is renewed 
within us. The love of life is regained. 

To all these things, as far as they 
go, religion says a hearty Amen. “The 
Lord knoweth that ye have need of 
these things.” They are to our faint- 
heartedness what bread is to hunger. 
But man shall not live by bread alone 
and man’s spirit shall not be made 
whole by recreation alone. 

It may seem strange to speak of 
Lent as a time for restoring our good 
nature and our love of life. It may 


[4] 


INTRODUCTORY 


seem strange to speak of the con- 
templation of the Cross in the same 
breath with the contemplation of sunlit 
waters and shadowed hills. Lent often 
appears as something quite different 
from that,—as a time for being gloomy 
under religious auspices, a period when 
we are called upon to make ourselves a 
little wretched for piety’s sake. And 
the yearly contemplation of the Cross 
must seem to many an artificial way of 
adding dark hours to years with dark- 
ness enough in them already. 

If the restoration of spirit, the good 
nature, the love of life for which we 
seek is of the sort that is to be won by 
forgetting and overlooking the burden 
and pain of life, then holiday is no 
doubt the way to find it. But if we 
seek a good nature and a love of life 
that can suffer long and still be kind, 
that is not easily provoked, that bear- 


[5] 


THE KING'S)CROSS 


eth all things, endureth all things and 
never faileth, then we need more than 
holiday. The man or woman who 
wants to be more than good-natured, 
who wants a really good nature, knows 
well enough that the cure for ill nature 
must go deeper than recreation. It 
must search out and cast out the self- 
ishness and vanity and uncleannesss 
and indolence and spiritual fatigue that 
are at the roots of our ill nature. The. 
love of our friends and our kindred is 
too blind a love, too tolerant of our 
weakness. And they ask too little of 
us. We must come into a presence 
that condemns all the evil in us without 
disheartening us. We must come into 
the presence of the Cross. 

Likewise the man or woman in 
search of an unconquerable love of 
life, something more than a passing 
mood or a pagan love of pleasure, 


[6] 


INTRODUCTORY 


knows well enough that it must be a 
love than can live with much else be- 
side sunshine and laughter and those 
whom it is easy to love. We must be 
able to find God even in the midst of 
pain and evil. We must come into the 
presence of a work of God in which 
pain and sorrow and sin are taken up 
and. transfigured, from which “sorrow 
and love flow mingled down.” In 
the Cross we have such a work of 
God, something finished, something 
given, “towering o’er the wrecks of 
time.” 

The road to a good nature leads 
through the repentance of Ash Wed- 
nesday. And the road to an abiding 
love of life leads through the sorrow of 
Good Friday. 


[7] 


THE SUPERSCRIPTION 


And they crucified him, . . . and sitting 
down, they watched him there: and set up 
over his head his accusation written, This 
ts Jesus, the King of the Jews.—S. Mat- 
THEW XXVii, 35, 30, 37. 


E are met together to contem- 
plate the Cross. We must be- 

gin by making certain that that is our 
single purpose. We are not met to 
contemplate our own piety or to com- 
pare it with the heedlessness of the 
multitudes who on this day pass by on 
the other side. We are not met to lis- 
ten with approval or disapproval to 
the addresses of a minister. The sub- 
ject of our contemplation is the Cross. 
Before our imagination, cleansed 
and consecrated, we are to summon 
and hold the image of the Cross. But 
it is not on the crossed timbers, not 


[8] 


THE SUPERSCRIPTION 


on the wood and iron, that we fix our 
gaze. It is on Christ lifted up. Dur- 
ing the hours that we spend together 
He is before us with arms outstretched. 
He speaks. We listen. And the only 
thoughts that concern us are these: 
What is He to me and to my neigh- 
bors? What am I to Him? 

Over the head of Christ crucified 
are written these words: “This is 
Jesus, the King of the Jews.” They 
are the only title that is written into 
the scene. A passerby, stopping to 
gaze from afar off on this gruesome 
scene on Golgotha, would be given no 
other explanation than this. Three 
men crucified. In the centre a man 
who has been scourged. His brow 
marked with thorns. Soldiers at the 
foot of the Cross casting dice for His 
clothing. And over His head,—This 
is a King. 

[9] 


THE KING’S CROSS 





If the passing stranger, drawn by 
pity or by curiosity, drew near and 
questioned one of the Roman soldiers 
on guard at the place of execution, he 
might get some such answer as this, 
“Is He a King? Did He claim to be a 
King ?’—“Yes, He set Himself up to 
be somewhat. Called Himself a King. 
Came parading into Jerusalem on the 
day following the last Sabbath, stirring 
up an uproar among the people. These 
fool Jews, always talking about the 
restoration of their little kingdom. 
Why aren’t they content with the rule 
of Caesar, without talking about the 
Kingdom of God? They have law and 
order. What more do they want?” 
So little did the Roman soldiers know 
what they did. 

If going on his way again, the 
stranger should meet one of the leaders 
of the Jews and question him, saying, 


[10] 


THE SUPERSCRIPTION 


“Ts He a King? Did He claim to be 
your King?”, the scribe or Pharisee. 
might answer,—‘‘We had to put it that 
way to get action from the Romans. 
They care nothing for the law of God. 
All they care for is law and order. 
No, He didn’t exactly claim to be a 
king. But He acted as though He 
thought He were one. He made Him- 
self equal with the King of Kings, for- 
giving men’s sins. ‘Who can forgive 
sins, but God only?’ When we ques- 
tioned Him, He blasphemed, saying 
that the very Spirit of the Most High 
God spoke in Him. He broke the an- 
cient laws of Moses, in obedience to 
which alone we can be saved. He set 
Himself up as the giver of a New 
Law. If He is what He claims to be 
and can save others, let Him save Him- 
self and come down from the Cross.” 
So little did the guardians of religion 


[11] 


THE KING'S CROSS 


and righteousness understand the 
_ treasure which they guarded. 

On the outskirts of the city or 
hurrying along the road _ toward 
Galilee, the stranger who had passed 
by the Cross and seen the strange su- 
perscription, might meet one of the 
disciples of Him who was crucified. | 
And still wondering over the mystery 
of that scene, he might ask again, 
“Was He a King? Did He claim to 
be a King?” And the disciple might 
answer, “I do not know. I do not 
understand. He told us that after the 
baptism of John He went out into the 
wilderness and wrestled with Satan. 
And Satan offered Him all the king- 
doms of the world and the glory of 
them, but He rejected them. He 
seemed not to be a King. He was 
poor. He had not a place to lay His 
head. Yet He spoke always of a 


[12] 


THE SUPERSCRIPTION 


Kingdom. He told us the law of the 
Kingdom as one having authority in 
it. It was the Kingdom of God, yet it 
was also His, as though He were the 
very Son and Heir of God. He was to 
us a King. But one of us asked Him 
once whether we might have places of 
honor at His right hand and at His 
left in His Kingdom. And He said, 
‘Are ye able to drink of the cup that I 
shall drink of and to be baptized with 
the baptism that I am baptized with?’ 
And then He called us together and 
said, “Ye know that the princes of the 
Gentiles exercise dominion over them, 
and they that are great exercise au- 
thority upon them. But it shall not be 
so among you: but whosover will be 
great among you let him be your min- 
ister, and whosoever will be chief 
among you let him be your servant; 
even as the Son of Man came not to 


[13] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


be ministered unto but to minister and 
to give His life a ransom for many.’ ”’ 

It is a King that is lifted up on the 
Cross before us. It is not only a man 
in pain. It is not only a just man evil 
entreated. It is not only a prophet re- 
jected of His own countrymen. It is 
a King. He does not invite our pity. 
He commands our obedience. We do 
not weep for Him. He weeps for us. 
We do not rush to His aid. We bow 
before Him. Who are we to help 
Him? In His weakness He strengthens 
us. His humiliation humbles us. Here 
is no victim of men or of circum- 
stances. Here is the Master of life. 
The Cross is a throne. 

But only those can recognize the 
King on the Cross who have re- 
nounced their worldliness and are ready 
to have their world and all their values 
turned upside down. To the wisdom 


[14] 


THE SUPERSCRIPTION 


of this world, the Cross of Christ is 
foolishness. Until we can recognize 
the King on the Cross we have not 
known what is royal. It is the Christ 
who was crucified who sitteth crowned 
on the right hand of God. 


PEN our eyes, O God, that we 

may see that which 1s royal. 
Clothe us with the garments of 
humility, that we may enter into 
the presence of our humble King. 
Take from us our worldliness and 
our despising of the lowly, that 
being cleansed from all self-seek- 
mg, we may be admitted into the 
glorious fellowship of the servants 
of God. 


[15] 


THE FIRST WORD 


Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; 
for they know not what they do.—S. LUKE 
XXIli, 34. 


HROUGHOUT His _ ministry 
Christ had been putting Himself 

on the side of the outcast and defeated. 
His love drew Him through city streets 
and along country roads, beside city 
gates and through dark doorways in 
search of trouble. Poverty, weakness, 
loneliness, thirst drew Him to their 
side. And wherever any were despised 
and rejected of men, there He was as 
their advocate. Since publicans and 
sinners were not respectable, He was 
a friend of publicans and sinners. 
Children are rebuked for their for- 
wardness in the presence of the great 
Teacher; and in answer to those who 


[16] 


THE FIRST WORD 


rebuke them, the Teacher reaches out 
His arms to draw them nearer. Zac- 
chaeus is a covetous man, suspected 
and disliked in his community. Christ 
chooses to put up at his home. A 
woman is taken in adultery, and Christ 
finds her accusers gathered about her. 
“Let him that is without sin cast the 
first stone.” And the only one who 
has no stone ready to cast is He who is 
without sin. 

Now, He who was a friend of the 
outcast and defeated is Himself cast 
out and rejected of men. And a mir- 
acle takes place. His enemies thrust 
Him from them. He returns to their 
side. He takes their side. They treat 
Him as one defeated and outcast. He 
treats them as men themselves defeated 
and outcast. “Father, forgive them; 
_for they know not what they do.” He 
pleads their cause. He argues their 


[17] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


case. He is the only friend His ene- 
mies have. 

We could understand Fear, crying 
out for mercy and for gentleness in 
the midst of pain. We could under- 
stand Anger, prophesying destruction 
to those who slew Him and calling 
upon God for vengeance. We could 
understand Pride, hiding the signs of 
fear and defeat beneath bravado. But 
can we understand the miracle of For- 
giveness? 

It is plain that His forgiveness does 
not mean either surrender or compro- 
mise. In the very act of praying for 
His enemies, He draws further from 
them and nearer to God. He is as far 
from them as compassion is from cru- 
elty, or tenderness from the hardened 
heart, or love from hate. It had been 
so all through His life. He was fur- 
ther from covetousness than those who 


[18] 


THE FIRST WORD 


despised Zacchaeus, He who forsook 
houses and lands and bade men take 
no thought for what they should eat or 
what they should put on. He was fur- 
ther from uncleanness than those who 
condemned the woman taken in adul- 
tery, He who taught that adultery may 
be committed in the heart, and set 
aside the law of Moses as to divorce. 
He cared more for the poor than those 
who upbraided the woman with the 
alabaster box. He hated cruelty and 
injustice more than His enemies hated 
Him. Because He judged as God 
judges, He judged His enemies more 
severely than they judged Him. But 
because He loved as God loves, 
He was the best friend His enemies 
had. 

He alone saw how deep and black was 
the defeat of those who crucified Him, 
and He alone pleaded their cause and 


[19] 


THE KING'S CROSS 


sought for the mercy that alone could 
save them. 

In Christ upon the Cross we see 
love for God and love for sinners 
dwelling in one heart. His love of 
God does not hold Him back from lov- 
ing sinners. His love of sinners does 
not stand in the way of His love of 
God. God and sinners can meet in His 
heart. They are not, then, hopelessly 
separated. The life that can take two 
alienated lives within itself is a recon- 
ciling life. Christ’s is a reconciling life. 

The forgiveness of Christ came to . 
men with such authority as being the 
forgiveness of God, because men recog- 
nized that He who loved them was the 
same One who judged them with the 
stern judgment of God. He did not 
depart from God in drawing near to 
them. Therefore they could come near 
to God in drawing near to Him. 


[20] 


THE FIRST WORD 


The deepest agony in Christ’s pas- 
sion was the pain of giving such for- 
giveness. To love purity and love 
adulterers, to love kindness and love 
the unkind, to love generosity and love 
the covetous, to love God and love sin- 
ners, that is the inmost secret of Cal- 
vary. 

That God forgives means that the 
Love of God reaches out after all of 
us, into all the dark places of our world 
and of our hearts, seeking to reconcile 
us to Himself and to one another, even 
while the aweful purity of His holi- 
ness must cast out and reject all the 
unkindness and uncleanness and self- 
ishness that dwells in our lives. 

It is the nature of the Love of God 
to reach down to us without lowering 
Himself to love the false and little and 
unclean things which we love. It is 
the life of God to remain perfect and 


[ar] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


yet go into companionship with men. 

In return, He asks of us a love like 
His own. He asks us to reach up to 
His perfection without ceasing to love 
those whom He loves, without despis- 
ing ourselves or our neighbors. It is 
the life of man to remain in the com- 
panionship of men and go into the 
presence of God. 

To love God is to let His love dwell 
in us, and when His love dwells in us, 
it will carry us past all the barriers 
we build against our fellows,—all bar- 
riers of race and breeding, all barriers 
of custom and disapproval,—until our 
lives are knit into theirs and we be- 
come their advocates before the throne 
of God. 

The Cross is no arbitrary and passing 
incident in the history of man’s re- 
demption. It is not the price paid to a 
relentless God. It is the destiny of the 


[22] 


THE FIRST WORD 


forgiving heart. And if we have not 
entered into it, it is because we have 
loved neither God nor man greatly. 

“Father, forgive us our trespasses as 
we forgive those who trespass against 
us.” 

Even now as we know ourselves so 
far from the love of God and the love 
of our neighbors, Christ is at our side, 
pleading for us also, “Father, forgive 
them; for they know not what they do.” 

He forgives even our unforgiving- 
ness. 


ORGIVE us our unforgiving- 
ness,O God. With lying lips 

we condemn the les of our breth- 
ren. With unclean hearts we de- 
spise their uncleanness. With 
whatsoever judgment we judge, 


[23] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


Thou dost judge us. Departing 
from our brethren we depart from 
Thee. Bring us back to Thyself 
and to them, that sharing with 
them mm Thy forgiveness we may 
share Thy forgivingness. 


[24] 





THE SECOND WORD 





And one of the malefactors which were 
hanged railed on him, saying, If thow be 
Christ, save thyself and us. But the other 
answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not 
thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same 
condemnation? And we indeed justly; for 
we receive the due reward of our deeds: 
but this man hath done nothing amiss. And 
he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me 
~ when thou comest into thy Kingdom. And 
Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, 
Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.— 
S. LUKE xxiii, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43. 


HRIST had lived at the side of the 

wrong people and of the wronged 
people. And now He died at the side 
of the wrong people. It was not of 
His own choosing that it was so, but it 
was typical of His whole life. He had 
even taught with incredible emphasis 


[25] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


that God associates with the wrong 
people, is on the side of the wrong 
people. God does not dwell, He taught, 
with the securely pious, who in their 
rigorous conformity are thankful that 
they are not as most other men and 
women are. He dwells rather with 
the humble and despised publican, who 
out of the heart, not merely out of the 
Prayer Book, cries “God be merciful 
to me a sinner.” They who feel sure 
that they are well will not be called 
upon by this Physician. He lived and 
died with the sick. 

He who was on the side of God 
came to dwell on our side. He who 
dwelt with purity came to dwell at the 
side of the unclean. He who dwelt 
with perfect love came to the side of 
all uncharitableness. He who dwelt 
with perfect peace came to the side of 
rancour and self-seeking and petty 

[26] 


THE SECOND WORD 


jealousy. He passed over the great 
gulf between holiness and sin, between 
God and us, not only to be near to men, 
but stranger still, to be near to God. 
For if there was anything He was sure 
of, it was that the Spirit of God and 
the spirits of men are so knit together 
that they must be sought and found 
together. “If ye forgive not men their 
trespasses, neither will God forgive 
your trespasses.” “Inasmuch as ye 
have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren ye have done it unto 
me.” 

_ He came over to our side in order 
that we might be on His side. He 
came to be with us that we might be 
with Him. 

There were two men beside Christ 
on the Cross. One of them turned 
and was with Him. The other was 
only beside Him. It is not the same to 


[27] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


be outwardly beside Him and to be in- 
wardly with Him. To be numbered 
among those who keep His company, 
even to be named with His name, is 
not the same as to be with Him. He 
spoke often of those who were against 
Him and those who were with Him. 
“He that is not with me is against me.” 
He knew that at least one of the twelve 
was not with Him. To the scribe who 
was not outwardly one of His follow- 
ers and yet knew the great command- 
ments to be the great commandments, 
He said, “Thou art not far from the 
kingdom of God.” And not to be far 
from the kingdom of God was not to 
be far from Him who was its corner- 
stone. 

To be with Him is to see things as 
He sees them, to believe in what He 
believes in, to love what He loves and 
hate what He hates, to love Him. God 


[28] 





THE SECOND WORD 





alone knows whether we who are 
gathered here and appear before the 
world as His disciples are really with 
Him. Do we see things as He sees 
them, life, God, ourselves, our neigh- 
bors? Do we love God? Do we love 
our neighbors as ourselves? Do we 
prize the knitting together of men and 
God above all else, so that we would 
not let anything else we treasure stand 
in the way of achieving that? 

Do we believe in forgiveness? 
Really believe in it, for ourselves, our 
fellows, for servants and masters, for 
blacks and whites, for Germans and 
Russians? for wives and husbands? 
So few do believe in it. The forgive- 
ness they believe in is a bargaining 
matter that proclaims to the enemy, 
“When you have begged my pardon 
and admitted that you were all wrong 
and I was all right, that in it all we 


[29] 


THE KING'S CROSS 


were very far apart, then I shall gra- 
ciously relent.” But that is not to be 
with Christ, who though we were so 
far from Him drew near to us and 
stood ready to receive, and was not 
fearful lest even He who was innocent 
should be numbered among the trans- 
eressors. 

Do we believe that the greatest is 
the servant of all? Until we do, we 
shall not recognize Christ as the great- 
est of all. But so few do believe it. 
There are many called Public Servants, 
but there are few in spirit. There are 
many who measure greatness as the 
Gentiles did and call it Success. There 
are few who truly measure greatness 
as Christ measured it and so are with 
Him. 

He came to be with us that we might 
be with Him. And yet He is so little 
a King of violence that He will not 


[30] 





THE SECOND WORD 





lay hold of us and force us into His 
service. He will not be a slave-maker, 
but will only call us as free men into 
a service which is perfect freedom. He 
will only stand like the Father whom 
He honors, ready to welcome the sons 
of God into the family of God. 

He is close at hand. He is ready to 
receive. But how can we pass over the 
gulf which we perceive between our- 
selves and Him? We may be beside 
Him, but we are not with Him. The 
thief on the Cross beside Him showed 
the way. The woman in search of 
healing showed the way. She touched 
the hem of His garment. The thief 
hardly did more. He reached out 
towards Him. He desired to be with 
Him. And that was enough to begin 
with. Just to admire Christ, just to 
touch in reverence and love the hem of 
His garment, is to begin to enter into 


[31] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


that place where He is. Where our 
treasure is, there shall our heart be 
also. We grow to be what we love. 
We grow like those whom we love. 
When the love of cleanness springs up, 
the cleansing has begun. When the 
love of kindness calls, charitableness 
has begun to enter in. When the love 
of truth appears, honesty is close at 
hand. When the love of Christ is. in 
a heart, the kingdom of God is not far 
off. 

To surrender to that love and to ask 
to abide in it, is to be converted. The 
thief on the cross was converted. 

And Jesus said unto him, Verily I 
say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with 
me in paradise. To be with Christ 
now is to be with Him always. Anda 
new thought of Paradise is born. To 
be in Paradise is to be with Christ. 
He goes to prepare a place for us, that 


[32] 


THE SECOND WORD 


where He is there His servant may 
be also. 

To depart hence is to be with the 
Lord. 


HOU dost suffer at our side 

and we ratl at Thee, com- 
plaining of our lot. We are far 
from Thee though Thou dost 
come so near. Remember us in 
Thy dwelling place, O God, and 
bring us into that country wherem 

— Thy will is done. 


[33] 


THE THIRD WORD 


When Jesus therefore saw his mother, 
and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, 
he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold 
thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Be- 
hold thy mother! And from that hour that 
disciple took her unto his own home.—sS. 
JOHN xix, 26, 27. 


T was not the first time He had had 

to separate from His mother. It 
was only the last of many times. Out 
of the obscurity of His childhood there 
comes the story of His separating 
from her in that same city of Jerusa- 
lem. At that time when she had found 
Him, she asked Him, saying, “Son, 
why hast thou thus dealt with us: 
behold thy father and I have sought 
thee sorrowing? And He answered, 
How is it that ye sought me? Wist 


[34] 


THE THIRD WORD 


ye not that I must be about my 
Father’s business?” And now, if she 
had had the heart, she might have 
asked Him again, “Son, why hast thou 
thus dealt with us?” And His answer 
again would have been, “‘Wist ye not, 
that I must be about my Father’s busi- 
ness?” | 

In the early days of His ministry, 
those of His own household had come 
to Him to draw Him back from what 
seemed to their unseeing eyes a mad 
career. To speak plainly, they thought 
He was a fool. 
- On one occasion when His mother 
and brethren sought Him, it is re- 
corded that He contrasted the wider 
loyalties to which He had been sum- 
moned with the family ties within 
which they would have held Him. 
‘Who is my mother and my brother?’ 
He had learned in His own experience 


[35] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


the bitter lesson that “a prophet is not 
without honor, but in his own country, 
and among His own kin, and in his 
own house.” 

This last separation from His mother | 
was but the end of the hard road which 
again and again had led Him to a 
painful break with all the ties of nat- 
ural affection. That which He asked 
of His disciples was only the following 
where He had gone before. “Think- 
est thou that I am come to send peace 
on earth? I came not to send peace, 
but a sword. For I am come to set 
a man at variance against his father 
and the daughter against her mother, 
and a man’s foes shall be of his own 
household. He that loveth father or 
mother more than me is not worthy 
of me.” 

Yet the Teacher from whose lips 
these hard sayings came cared more 


[36] 


THE THIRD WORD 


for the family and did more for the 
family than any other. He reiterated 
the ancient commandments to honor 
thy father and mother, to reverence 
the lives whose bodies gave birth to 
our bodies and whose spirits shaped 
our spirits, and He rebuked those who 
would reduce by one jot or tittle the 
depth and breadth of those obligations. 
He lifted the union of man and woman 
in marriage out of sensuality and legal 
partnership to the level of a holy union, 
in which as in the kingdom of God, 
love alone is the fulfilling of the law. 
“What therefore God hath joined to- 
gether let no man put asunder.” He 
so joined His life to childhood that 
forever after the care and training of 
children is sanctified in His name. 
And yet He broke. with His own 
family and parted from His mother 
and His brethren to found a wider 


[37] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


kinship. “Who is my mother? and 
who are my brethren? And He 
stretched forth His hand toward His 
disciples and said, Behold, my mother 
and my brethren! For whosoever shall 
do the will of my father which is in 
heaven, the same is my brother and sis- 
ter and mother.” 

He parted from His mother and 
brethren to be near His Father. But 
the Father, because He is the Father 
of whom the whole family in heaven 
and earth is named, straightway sent 
Him out to bind together in a new 
kinship the children of God, become 
brothers and sisters in Christ. 

And that which came forth from 
His sacrifice was the Church of Christ. 
It is not in its deepest meaning an or- 
ganization for the maintenance of pub- 
lic worship. It is not in its deepest 
meaning an organization for the trans- 


[38] 


THE THIRD WORD 


mission of privileged ecclesiastical au- 
thority. It is not in its deepest mean- 
ing a society with a vested monopoly 
of God’s grace or God’s truth. It is 
the household of God. It is the home of 
Christ’s Spirit, where His Spirit lives. 
And the place where His Spirit does not 
live is not His Home no matter how 
many times His name is written on its 
walls. The Church is the fellowship of 
those who know themselves to be 
through Christ children of God and 
brothers and sisters of one another in 
Christ. 

Prom athe Crossyi Christi said: 
“Woman, behold thy son.” “Son, 
behold thy mother.” And to us now 
from the Cross He says: “Brethren, 
behold thy brethren.” “Sisters, behold 
thy sisters.” 

It is this which makes so tragic our 
failure to be His Church. The lack 


[39] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


of true fellowship among those who 
worship under one roof, the sectarian 
spirit, the assurance of being better in — 
God’s eyes than other branches of the 
Church, the coldness, the petty rival- 
ries,—all these literally tear the life of 
Christ apart. He loves us all. He is 
in us all. He cares for nothing so 
supremely as that we in Him might be 
one. | 

“And now I am no more in the 
world, and I come to thee. Holy 
Father, keep through thy own name 
those whom thou hast given me, that 
they may be one as we are—That 
they all may be one, that they may 
be one in us, that the world may be- 
lieve that thou hast sent me.” 


[40] 





THE THIRD WORD 


HTOU hast set us among 

strangers, O God, and dost 
bid us dwell with aliens. Those 
of our own household know us 
only in part and love us only in 
part. Make us known to one an- 
other; reconcile us to one another, 
that we may dwell together im 
Thee. 


[41] 


THE FOURTH WORD 


¢ hi 
And when the sixth hour was come, there — 

was, darkness over the whole land until the 
ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus 
cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, 
Eloi, lama sabachthani? which ts, being in- 
terpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me?—S, Mark xv, 33, 34. 


CHANGE now takes place in 

the centre of the thoughts sug- 
gested by the words from the Cross. 
1¢ first three _wordg have to do with. 
those who are about the Cross.. 
show us Christi His last” earthly 
ealings with ‘mankind with the ene-| \\ 
ies who crucified ‘Him, with the thief a) 










Ome 


| on the Cross beside Him, with His_ {| 
| _ mother and_ His disciple... They speak © wh 
| to us of ourselves and of His dealings | 

|e re eee 


| with us. / yy, 
| [42] 


‘eC ay, 


sabes 





THE FOURTH WORD 





The words which follow centre in 
the dark experiences through which 


He was passing and in His relation to 


God.__This fourth word, which we 


pa Unrate lmnnes Ne ate hae 


“now recall, expresses the deep distress 
of spirit through which He was pass- 
\ing. It is a cry of ‘disappointment,_of 
sore amazement, _ rote questioning —artd-~ / 


*Honeliness. | 


The ancient writers who gave us 
our accounts of the Lord’s life must 
have been sorely tempted to omit these 
words from the record as unworthy of 
the majestic and victorious spirit of 
their Master. Yet it is better attested, 
perhaps more certain, than any of the 
other words from the Cross that have 
come down to us. 

If these words stood alone in the 


record of His life, they would be-dis- . 
__maying and shattering words. If His 
life had been marked throughout by a 


[43] 





THE KING’S CROSS 


confidence of easy and certain victory, 
by the assurance that divine power 
would shield Him from all ill, and that 
__the-certain reward of perfect right- 
eousness is. prosperity and ease—as 
‘many of the Old Testament writers 
_had-asserted; if He had-gone His way, 
always certain that God would not suf-- 
—-—fér His Holy-One-to-so much as dash 
His foot against a stone; if that were 
~the-record, and then at the end we 
found this piercing cry of ‘disilltision-_- 
ment and despair,—our “confidence_in_ in 
Christ-could hardly st survive. “But. the 
record is not that.” 
“ All the signs of the times were 
ominous and foreboding. The follow- 
ers of Herod and the Pharisees showed 
their hostility early in His ministry. 
_According to the Gospel of John at— 
least two attempts had been made upon 
His life. And quite apart from His 


ee [44] 


THE FOURTH WORD 


own experience, He knew that they 
had persecuted the prophets which 
were before Him. At the great scene 
at Caesarea Philippi when He asked 
His disciples whom they thought Him 
to be, and the confession came from 
the lips’ of ) Peter, “Thou ‘art’ the 
Christ,” He straightway began to 
teach them that the Son of Man must 
suffer many things and be rejected of 
the elders and of the chief priests and 
scribes and be killed. The Jerusalem 
towards which He had steadfastly set 
His face in these latter days was 
“Jerusalem that killeth the prophets 
and stonest them which are sent unto 
thee.” The last days before the end 
were full of repeated anticipations. 
The woman with the alabaster box of 
precious spikenard had anointed His 
body for burial. The Supper with His 
disciples had been a gathering of sol- 


[45] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


emn farewell. The distress of Geth- 
semane was in preparation for the pain © 
of Calvary. He had come to see that 
it was necessary that the Son of Man 
should be crucified. 

This necessity did not lie only in the 
historical situation in which He found 
Himself. Nor did it lie in some arbi- 
trary decree of an arbitrary and re- 
vengeful God. He might have turned 
back and have avoided the crucifixion. 
The necessity lay in the very nature of 


* His ministry and high calling. If He 


was to maintain together both the un- 
swerving righteousness of God and the 
everlasting love of God, there was no 
other way. To call for a purity that 
condemned their uncleanness, to pro- 
claim an inward law that condemned 
their pretentious legality, to hold to an 
unworldliness that refused their worldly 
hopes, was bound to make both priests 


[46] 





THE FOURTH WORD 





and people His enemies. And to main- 
tain an unfaltering love for those 
whom His teaching condemned, was to 
shut out all violence from His minis- 
try. Whatever be our judgment as to 
the Lord’s pacifism, it is plain that He 
set out to conquer by a new method 
and knew that no other method would 
gain the victory He sought. He could 
not flee from His captors without be- 
ing disloyal to God’s law. He could 
not draw the sword against His cap- 
tors without proclaiming Himself their 
enemy. He could not even come down 
from the Cross by the violence of God. 
All external means must fail to accom- 
plish_ I His ¢ purpose, Which | ‘was to win| 
“nen-to-a Hie obédience to the perfect 
will of God. Whatever be our skill in 
‘softening Christ’s teaching as applied 
~ to ourselves, He had to love His ene- 


mies, to bless them that cursed Him, rea 


[47] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


do good to them that hated Him, to _ 


pray for them which despitefully ites 
Him and persecuted. Him. He -had in. 





one final and supreme act to 1 maintain. 
the full austerity of God’s law andthe. 
full patience of God’s love. And that 
meant the Cross. 

The cry of distress from the Cross, 
—“My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me?” was not, then, a cry of 


\ disillusionment at fragile hopes rudely 
broken. It was the last and deepest 
Act) of a spirit wracked and-tortured 


y_the mystery-of spiritual evil: 

“Why are God and man so far apart? 
Why do men, beholding good, choose 
evil? Why do they stone their proph- 
ets and kill those whom God sends 
unto them? Why does even unfail- 
ing love fail? Why does He who 
would reconcile men to God have to 
go so far from God to be near to men, 


[48] 





THE FOURTH WORD 


and to suffer such pain of spirit and of 
body? Why does all creation groan 
and travail? It is the echo of God’s, 
“Why do my people go far from me?” 
It is the gathering up of mankind’s 
darkness and confusion of spirit, 
“Why is God so far from us?” 

The Cross gives no neat answer. It 
shows the spirit of the Master Him- 
self, staggering beneath the burden 
which He has long since faced and re- 
solved to carry. | 

Men have found comfort in the very 
hardest interpretation of the words, as 
the cry of spiritual loneliness, when 
nothing seems real but one’s own de- 
serted spirit and a world of unrespon- 
sive things and men. He shared the 
forsakenness of our spiritual night. 
He is alone with those who are alone. 
And even though we descend into Hell, 
there He is also. 


[49] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


HY hast Thou forsaken us, 

O God, and why have we 
forsaken Thee? Thou dost know 
the loneliness of being forsaken of 
us. Deepen our homesickness that 


we may seek Thee until we find 
Thee. 


[50] 





THE FIFTH WORD 





After this, Jesus knowing that all things 
were now accomplished, that the scripture 
might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst—S. Joun 
xix, 28. 


F the fourth word from the Cross 

stands for the distress of Christ’s 
spirit, this fifth word, “I thirst,” stands 
for the distress of His body. 

We do not know whether there had 
been pain or physical suffering in His 
own life before this time. But we do 
know that this was not His first meet- 
ing with pain. He did not live in any 
realm apart. He was not shut within 
the walls of His own senses, nor 
guarded from the drabness and horror 
of human ills. Pain did not have to 
come knocking at the door of His own 
life to persuade Him of its presence in 


[51] 


cece een en ET 


THE KING’S CROSS 





the world. Before it had knocked, He 
had opened the door; and before it had 
come to His door, He had gone in search 
of it. He knew where pain was and 
He went to find it. And He found it, 
—sitting blind by the roadside, lying 
helpless by the pool, limping along the 
streets, in the home of a centurion, in 
the home of Mary and Martha, on the 
Cross beside Him. 

His views as to the worth or good- 
ness of life or as to the power and 
love of God, were not dependent on 
whether life treated Him well or 
treated Him ill. There was in Him 
none of that presumption, which see- 
ing in oneself and one’s own welfare 
the measure of all things, estimates 
God by one’s own health and fortunes. 
Whatever men’s judgment as to the 
faith which dwelt in Christ, it was not 
a faith built alone upon the contempla- 


[52] 


ORS EOS Saab Leal ice Ae eS 
THE FIFTH WORD 





tion of the lilies of the field and the 
fowls of the air, on sunlit waters and 
playing children. He had seen that 
sparrows fall, that sheep stumble into 
pits; He had seen men in pain and 
women in sorrow; He had seen naked- 
ness and thirst; He knew that towers 
fall on the just and on the unjust, and 
had discarded that easy omniscience 
that can see the exact justice in every 
visitation of trouble. He healed some 
who were sick. Others He could not 
heal. Multitudes, He knew, had never 
come, and would never come within 
His reach. 

He so identified Himself with all 
the want and suffering which were 
about Him that He could say that in 
their hunger and nakedness and thirst 
Fle was hungry and naked and thirsty, 
and that to minister to those whom He 
loved was to minister to Him. So that, 


[53] 


THE KINGS) CROSS 


ever since, there has come from many 
parched lips to those who have ears to 
hear His own, “I thirst.” 

Now, that which He had seen and 
felt and known in others has come to 
Him. It has come to Him in the sleep- 
less night of expectation and resolve. 
It has come to Him in scourge and 
thorn and nail. It has come to Him in 
weakness and weariness and _ thirst. 
And He bears it as He had resolved to 
bear it, as a part of the burden of His 
Saviourhood. And the appearance of 
the Cross was changed. 

It has been written that the Cross 
is common.,: It. .is)) Christ.thapuas 
unique. There were three crosses on 
Calvary. There were many before and 
there have been many since. There 
was only one Cross of Christ. 

It has been written, also, that the 
Cross of Christ is the truth about life. 


[54] 





THE FIFTH WORD 





“Life is as brutal as it is, as repulsive 
as it is, aS unjust as it is,—and as 
perfectly beautiful as He is.’ He who 
has looked upon it can have no shallow 
optimism as to what life holds in store. 
He can have no easy formulas accord- 
ing to which good and evil are dealt 
out according to deserts. But from the 
Cross a light shines out of the midst 
of pain which transforms it, not a light 
that has never shone anywhere else, 
but that shines in its full brightness 
there. There Love and Faith have met 
with Pain and have not faltered. 
Out of that Passion has issued a new 
calling,—not the sham calling of those 
who manufacture crosses to carry, 
that they may appear before them- 
selves or men as imitators of Christ, 
but those who finding a Cross in their 
path, carry Love and Faith to meet it. 
We all know those who, following 


[55] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


Christ consciously or unconsciously, 
show forth in the midst of pain and 
weakness a tragic beauty that makes 
them light-bearers and strength-givers 
to their fellows. 

Had Christ possessed the love of 
God and known no pain, we should 
have envied and despaired. Had pain 
driven the love of God from Christ’s 
heart, we should have pitied and de- 
spaired. But Christ knew God and 
loved God. And pain was in His heart 
and in His body. Pain entered, but 
the love of God dwelt with it and the 
peace of God surrounded it. 

We are strengthened to believe even 
where we cannot see. 


LHOU who are thirsty in 
the thirstiness of our fellows 


[56] 


THE FIFTH WORD 


and naked in their nakedness, open 
our ears to Thy calling and our 
eyes to the world’s needs. Un- 
loose the bands of our covetous- 
ness, blot out our imjustice, fill us 
with mercy that we may quench 
Thy thirst. 


[57] 


THE SIXTH WORD 


When Jesus therefore had received the 
vinegar, he said, It is finished—S. JoHN 
Xx 20, 


HE long hours of pain and spir- 

itual conflict draw to a close. 
The tension relaxes. The will lets go 
its weary hold. “It is finished.” 

What was finished? The pain was 
over. The distress of cruel mocking 
had ceased. And the life work of 
which the Cross was the last harsh 
task was over. 

The whole life had been intense with 
the constraint of a divine mission. He 
had pondered it in childhood. He had 
come up out of the waters of Jordan 
at the baptizing of John filled with a 
divine fire that drove him impetuously 
into the solitude of the wilderness. 


[58] 





THE SIXTH WORD 





There He had charted the roads that 
lay ahead and rejected all that did not 
lead to God and to the Cross. He had 
chosen disciples and hurried from vil- 
lage to village. The time was short. 
The world hung in the balance. There 
was in His ministry no impression of 
an aimless and amiable teacher of 
helpful religious wisdom wandering 
through the countryside. Through all 
His teaching and healing, there ran a 
note of doom, mingling strangely with 
the notes of quietness and confidence. 
He must hurry on even though people 
clamored and implored for healing. 
Those who shared His ministry must 
travel light and waste no time in the 
houses that would not receive them. 
He was God-driven. “I am come to 
send fire on the earth: ... I have a bap- 
tism to be baptized with and how am 
I straitened, (how am I pressed) 


[59] 


THE KING’S CROSS 








till it be accomplished.” He must 
work the work of God while it is day. 
His was a life that blazed with the 
fierceness and the tranquillity of a great 
flame from the time that He was called 
of God until “It is finished.” 

In all that He said and did there 
was not only this note of urgency, but 
also the note of finality. He spoke as 
one having authority. It was the voice 
of the eternal. This need not be said 
again. This need not be_ unsaid. 
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but my words shall not pass away.” 
Here you have—not hypothesis, not 
rumor, not a _ passing fashion of 
thought, not opinion, but God’s truth. 
“Whosoever heareth these sayings of 
mine and doeth them, I will liken him 
unto a wise man which built his house 
upon a rock”... God rules. And 
this is the law by which He rules. The 

[60] 


THE SIXTH WORD 


city in which God does not rule shall 
be destroyed even though it be the holy 
City of Jerusalem. The only city that 
can stand is the city which hath foun- 
dations, whose builder and maker is 
God. The house which is not built 
upon that law will fall stone from 
stone even though it be the temple. 
The life that is not founded upon this 
law is built upon sand. 

What was the work which He had 
finished? To proclaim the rule of 
God. To proclaim the law of God’s 
rule. To bring that rule to earth. He 
had proclaimed the Law and He had 
sealed the proclamation with His 
blood. He had prayed, “Hallowed be 
Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy 
will be done, as in heaven so on 
earth.” And in Him the name had 
been hallowed, the will had been done, 
the rule of God had come. In Him 


[61] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


God was loved and men were loved. 
In Him man forgave men as God for- 
gives men. And in the name of God 
He had paid the heavy cost of forgive- 
ness. 

Was His work finished? His work, 
Yes. The work, No! His work was 
finished. God could ask no more of 
Him. He had loved God with all His 
heart and mind and strength. He had 
offered Himself once for all to God 
as a holy, living, and acceptable sacri- 
fice. There was nothing more to give. 
It was finished. 

Was His work final? Yes, it was 
final. Was sin conquered? No! But 
He had done all that God can do to 
conquer sin. He had shown not only 
in word but in deed that God goes out 
forever from the threshold of Heaven 
to meet the returning prodigal, not 
seeking the restoration of His wasted 

[62] 


THE SIXTH WORD 


substance, but only the restoration of 
His son. He had shown that neither 
height nor depth nor any other crea- 
ture can separate us from the love of 
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

The carpenter of Nazareth had done 
the handiwork of God. He had shaped 
the hard and stubborn wood of the 
Cross into the token of love and faith 
—to be worn upon the breasts of 
saints, to be traced on the foreheads of 
disciples, to be lifted aloft over city 
streets. A token disregarded, abused, 
mocked by the people who wear it, 
mocked by the heedless traffic in the 
streets below,—but finished. In Him 
God had once for all dwelt among us 
and we beheld His glory. 

And in Him man had _ entered 
once into the Holy Place. Out of fire 
and struggle the mould of a new hu- 
manity had been wrought, and it was 


[63] 


DHE RINGS ROSS 


final. It remained for those who came 
after to pour their lives into that 
mould. 

The foundation was laid, “But let 
every man take heed how he buildeth 
thereupon. For other foundation can 
no man lay than that is laid, which is 
Jesus Christ.” 


INISH Thy work in us, O 
God. Restore the worn and 
patched fabric of our lives. Take 
from us all that 1s not of Thy 
making, that being patterned after 
Thy lkeness we be made a new 
creature in Thee. 


[64] 





THE SEVENTH WORD 





And when Jesus had cried with a loud 
voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I 
commend my spirit: and having said thus 
he gave up the ghost—S. LuKE xxiii, 46. 


T is an utterly Christlike ending. 
There was in the life of Christ the 
note of mastery and authority. There 
was as Clearly the spirit of dependence 
and childlike trust. He summoned 
men into His service as one who has a 
rightful claim upon their service. He 
spoke words that should not pass away. 
He rebuked the leaders of His people 
and was entirely unimpressed by the 
power of Caesar. He spoke as one 
who would judge the world and whose 
judgment would be final. He rejected 
the feeble aid of Peter’s sword in the 
confidence of spirtual legions at His 
beck and call. He commanded unclean 


[65] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


spirits and forgave unclean men. He 
accepted the loftiest titles which His 
disciples could conceive. And at the 
end, in childlike simplicity, this King 
and Master of life commends His 
spirit to His Father’s care and keeping. 

This simple trust is as characteristic 
of His life and teaching as all the ut- 
terances of mastery and authority. It 
is not a new posture of the spirit 
adopted in the face of death. It is the 
habit of a lifetime expressing itself 
without effort in the final act of His 
life. He had continually urged men 
not to be anxious for the morrow, but 
to go on into it in quietness and with- 
out fear, confident that in every undis- 
covered tomorrow there is promise for 
the soul that trusts God. Now at the 
evening of life He Himself is not 
anxious for the morrow. He had con- 
tinually urged men not to take anxious 

[66] 


THE SEVENTH WORD 


thought for their bodies, wherewithal 
they should be clothed, nor yet for 
their life. And now He takes no anx- 
ious thought for His Spirit, with 
what body it shall be clothed, assured 
that His Father knoweth what things 
He hath need of. 

If He was confident throughout life 
of the mighty power of God that 
coursed through Him and of the ex- 
alted office to which God had called 
Him, He was conscious, too, of His 
entire dependence. He was meek and 
lowly in spirit. He possessed in His 
own heart the blessedness, which is 
the happiness, of the meek. He sought 
to drive fear from men’s hearts along 
with sin. “Fear not” was often on 
His lips. 

This which we call faith, in the 
sense of simple trust, is a distinctive 
mark of the goodness of Christ and of 


[67] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


the goodness we call Christian. Apart 
from the religion of Christ, men have 
found courage and temperance and 
honesty and unselfishness. But faith 
can only dwell with hope and love, 
hope in God and love for God. Faith 
lends to the pattern life of Christ 
and to the lives of all those who are 
conformed to His likeness a quality 
peculiarly Christian. Courage and 
honesty and unselfishness and justice 
take on a gentleness and humility and 
repose, which they can not have apart 
from it. Men can be courageous and 
honest and just and unselfish in a 
world wherein God is not found, be- 
lieving that each of these is better 
than its opposite. But in the measure 
that men do not find Truth and Justice 
and Love at the heart of things and 
on the throne, their very virtue must. 
take on a note of bitterness or resig- 
[68] 


THE SEVENTH WORD 


nation, of bravado or of pride. Either 
man nourishes and treasures a good- 
ness which he must at last resign to 
the tramplings of an indifferent fate, 
or he finds in His own moral achieve- 
ment the only worshipful thing in life 
and grows proud even in his virtue. 
The same goodness that confesses that 
God alone is good commends itself to 
God’s keeping. Faith lends to the 
character of Christ’s disciple a beauty 
of its own, the beauty of God’s peace. 

We are surrounded by omnipotence, 
and the deepest question of life is 
whether we can trust omnipotence. 
Our reach is short. Our time is brief. 
Our labor is forever unfinished. Our 
hopes and loves and purposes reach 
out to distances we can not span and 
to years we can not attain unto. The 
arrow shot from the hand must at last 
be committed to the sustaining and 


[69] 





THE KING’S CROSS 





guidance of laws and forces beyond 
our power. Even when we have done 
our mightiest, when we have given 
all and our work is finished, our work 
and our own souls must be committed 
to the sustaining and guidance of laws 
and energies beyond our control, 
Death is but the final committal. If 
we can not trust God for tomorrow, 
we cannot trust Him for the last to- 
morrow. If we cannot commit to Him 
our children and our fortunes and our 
unfinished work, we cannot commit to 
Him our souls. Those who have 
learned with Christ to rejoice in the 
sufficiency of each today, to walk 
through darkness confident of light, to 
wait patiently for peace in the midst 
of pain, to gain victory out of defeat, 
to turn the hard materials of life into 
shapes of beauty and of love, can with 
Him find in death the way to life. 


[70] 


THE SEVENTH WORD 


St. Francis entered as few have 
into the mind of Christ. And St. 
Francis sang of Death: 


“And thou, most kind and gentle Death, 
Waiting to hush our latest breath. 


Thou leadest home the child of God 
And Christ our Lord the way hath trod.” 


THOU whom eye has never 

seen nor ear heard, lead us 
through the darkness and silence 
of death into the brightness and 
rejoicing of Thy Presence. 


[71] 


CONCLUSION 


“ | .. the shape of the Cross which 
rises vertically as high as God, and 
stretches right and left to the uttermost 
bounds of humanity.”—BisHop BRENT. 


N the form of the Cross we may 
see the pattern alike of His teach- 
ing and His life. 

Thou shalt reach up to God. Thou 
shalt make common cause with God. 
Thou shalt make thyself one with God. 
Thou shalt identify thyself with God’s 
justice, with God’s truth, with God’s 
purity, with God’s mercy. Thou shalt 
be perfect as thy Father in heaven 
is perfect. 

Thou shalt reach out to thy neigh- 
bor. Thou shalt make common cause 
with thy neighbor. Thou shalt iden- 
tify thyself with thy neighbor, with 
his interests, his affections, his fail- 


[72] 


CONCLUSION 


ures, his pains. Thou shalt make his 
thine own. 

These commandments are the cen- 
tral structure of His teaching. They 
give to His teaching its shape and con- 
tour. They are at the same time the 
design upon which His life was built. 
Out along these two lines His will, 
His affections, His mind moved cease- 
lessly. With perfect simplicity He 
reached up to God. He pierced 
through and broke down all barriers 
that might oppose, ancient half truths 
as to the nature of God and the way 
to God, the jealous opposition of those 
who were the custodians of the estab- 
lished way, the downward pull of 
physical necessity and physical desire, 
the distracting attractions of domi- 
nance over men and things, the fears 
and darkness and impurity that hide 
God from men. He broke through 


[73] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


them all and walked in the presence of 
God, found Himself led by the hand 
of God, and with sure confidence 
thought the thoughts of God and spoke 
the Word of God to men. 

No less did His life reach out to 
men. And again, He broke through all 
barriers. He was not held back by the 
forbidding uncleanness of disease or 
the forbidding rudeness of manners. 
Sin could not drive Him back, sin 
self-indulgent and convivial, sin un- 
clean and degrading, sin rich and hated 
of men. There was no threshold He 
would not cross. There was no life 
He did not desire to enter into and 
receive into His own. 

Out of the structure of His life 
there issued the crucifixion. It was 
along the two great lines on which 
His life reached out that He met the 
opposition which finally killed Him. 


[74] 





CONCLUSION 





His enemies were outraged by the 
presumption of His absolute reach to 
God, His casting aside of whatever in 
law or ritual He did not find con- 
firmed, the sure confidence with which 
He spoke the will and the forgiveness 
of God. Shall man born of a woman 
lay claim to the throne of God? Shall 
man make himself equal with God? 

They were scandalized by the irreg- 
ularity and anarchy of His free char- 
ity towards men. “This law-breaker 
compromises with uncleanness in per- 
mitting a woman that is a sinner to 
minister to Him. He compromises 
with covetousness by dining with Zac- 
chaeus. He breaks the Law to heal 
a wretched beggar. For the sake of 
one soul shall we endanger the ancient 
structure of the Law in which we 
guard for ourselves the knowledge of 
God we possess? Are not the great 


[75] 





THE KING’S CROSS 


institutions like the Sabbath of more 
worth than a single soul or a multi- 
tude of souls? This lover of men 
gives comfort to the enemy, even to 
the enemies of God.” 

If His physical crucifixion issued 
from the structure of His life, even 
more certainly did the inner crucifix- 
ion of His spirit. To reach out and 
to reach up together was to take to 
Himself the whole burden of sin. As 
in the Cross itselfi—the wider the 
reach the greater the weight and strain 
on the central shaft, and the stronger 
the upward thrust the greater the pull 
on the outstretched arms—so in the 
life of Christ. In the absoluteness of 
His reach lay His inner suffering. He 
had to condemn those He loved and 
love those He condemned. He had to 
lift those who were a heavy burden 
and reach out to those who were very 


[76] 





CONCLUSION 


far off. In drawing near to God, He 
was tempted to draw apart from men 
and seek the peace of God in isolation. 
In His companionship with men, He 
was tempted to draw away from God 
and seek the favor of men in mere 
sociability. 

But He held faithfully to both and 
so became the great Reconciler. There 
is nothing in heaven or in earth that can 
reconcile save love. Physical force can 
constrain two bodies within the same 
room. The paying of money can settle a 
legal claim. The undergoing of punish- 
ment can satisfy the law. But nothing 
can bring alienated spirits together ex- 
ceptlove. Christ reconciles by the power 
of love. He reconciles by holding us 
all in His heart and drawing us all 
to Him. No matter how far He must 
descend to find us or our neighbors, 
He brings the love of God with Him. 


[77] 


THE KING’S CROSS 


And whenever we draw near to Him, 
we find our neighbors and our ene- 
mies already in His heart. We cannot 
meet Him without meeting them. The 
Cross is the hurt of that reconciliation. 

For those who see in Christ the 
revelation of the substance, the stuff 
of God, the Cross is the revelation of 
the structure of the life of God. God 
reaches down without limit. God 
reaches out without limit. Because 
the substance of God is love. 

For those who see in Christ the 
fulfilment of human destiny, the Cross 
is the structure of the life to which 
we are called. Man’s life is to reach 
up without limit. Man’s life is to 
reach out without limit. We are 
called into the fellowship of His suf- 
ferings. 


[78] 





CONCLUSION 





ND God saw everything that 
he had made, and behold, tt 
was very good. 


END 


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The device cross : meditations on the 


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